Target announced today that approximately 40 million credit and debit card customer accounts have been affected by a data breach. WOW. Let’s examine the ramifications of this:
- Target’s brand is diminished as a company that does not take proper action to protect their customers.
- Thieves could use the data to make counterfeit cards and use those cards, thus affecting the individual consumers both with stress and time in dealing with the situations, not to mention the potential financial ramifications of the customers.
- Thieves could also use the cards to make online purchases, quickly racking up thousands of dollars of tangible or even intangible assets or services on the stolen cards.
- Millions of dollars will be spent in “cleaning up,” policing, and in legal matters around the data breach.
- Consultants, PR experts, legal big wigs, and other experts will need to be brought in to handle the chaos and fallout of the situation.
Do you know that if you store personal information on your customers, and you suspect that your company has been hacked, that you are required by law to tell ALL your customers? What would that do to your reputation? Do you have the funds to handle the PR, Legal, and even technical fallout from a security breach? Do you have the funds to offer all your clients credit monitoring because of your breach?
In the over 15 years I have been an executive in the technology industry I have seen a lot of scary things. I can tell many stories of clients who thought they were covered, who thought that their security was adequate, and who thought that their backup was sufficient. On that same note, I can also tell you of some companies… who are no longer in business.
JMARK has a top notch network infrastructure team that specializes in making sure that bad people do not get in our clients networks. JMARK has dedicated backup experts to make sure that we can recover our client’s data from any situation. We have experienced systems engineers that specialize in many verticals to make sure that our clients’ systems are secure – according to industry regulations. We have dedicated and knowledgeable account managers (VCIOs) and experts that can assist with continuity planning and detailed network assessments.
Hope is not a strategy. Don’t put your data, reputation, and brand on the firing line. Give us a call and let’s make sure that you are protected and can recover from any situation. Contact us today for I.T. Services & Support!
